


A Sunday Aboard HMS Terror

by whalersandsailors



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, During Canon, Internal Conflict, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Pre-carnivale but post Sir John's death, Unrequited Crush, rare pair week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 14:24:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whalersandsailors/pseuds/whalersandsailors
Summary: John Irving is a man, conflicted; by his duty, his needs, his desires, and his place among the men. He finds some comfort on Sundays, when he hosts a small study for himself and the men. It may be a poor imitation of Sir John's Divine Services, but there is a distinct shift when Seaman Hartnell joins him one Sunday in late November.
Relationships: Lt John Irving/Lt Edward Little (one-sided), Thomas Hartnell/Lt John Irving, Thomas Jopson/Lt Edward Little (background)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 76
Collections: The Terror Rarepair Week 2019





	A Sunday Aboard HMS Terror

**Author's Note:**

> and here's the wrap for Rare Pair Week 2019: Irving's Funday Sunday (lol)

_“Another thing to be looked at is, that, as a settler, I should have **my own house**, however small, and I should be more out of **temptation to sin**_, _and be able to lead a **life better** to my improvement as a **Christian**, than on board ship.” _

\- John Irving, 16 May 1834, in a letter to friend W. E. Malcolm [emphasis mine]

***

_“I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.”_

Ecclesiastes 3:18–20, KJV

***

The winter darkness is thick as the silt of a riverbed rising after a torrential rain, much like the sludge of the Thames mucking against the skiffs and docks like pungent taint. Irving remembers the story of a drunkard, so deep in his cups that he wouldn’t know his own mother’s face, falling head first into a deceptively deep puddle of river mud. A lamplighter found him the next morning where he had suffocated, his nostrils and throat stopped up with filth.

Irving gasps as his body jerks awake, the false memory of mud sliding down his throat enough to make him double over the side of his bunk and gag. His chest heaves as he squeezes his eyes shut, nausea wracking his stomach like a storm buffeting _Terror_ herself.

Once the nausea passes, his fingers ache from where they clutched at the side of his bunk. He releases his grip and can feel the joints of his knuckles grinding. He lies flat on his bunk, closes his bloodshot eyes, and catches his breath.

It is Sunday, he remembers.

Unsure of the time, he continues lying in his bunk, scratching an itch on his chest. He shifts when he feels hardness between his legs, despite the ill that seized him only minutes ago. He considers taking himself in hand, quickly ridding himself of the issue, but he keeps his arms lying rigid at his sides. He also considers rising, breaking the ice of his basin, and splashing cold water on his face and chest; an equally strong tonic for his body’s traitorous impulses. He might also attempt rolling onto his side and chasing the oblivion of sleep for a merciful half hour more, but sleep has been hard to come by, since Sir John’s death and the start of a second winter trapped in ice.

He hears two bells ring from deck, and with a sigh, he gets up. He would sooner wash his face and dress himself before Gibson arrives, though he knows it will be a while yet. He wouldn’t mind some warm water to retouch the edges of his beard and scrape away the hair along his neck, but he must content himself to wait as Gibson must attend to the needs of the other lieutenants first. Gibson will leave fresh water for Little but perform no other duty, as the first lieutenant prefers his solitude in the mornings. Hodgson, on the other hand, enjoys conversation and will keep Gibson occupied for a while yet. 

Lighting the lamp and divesting of his night shirt, Irving scrubs at his face with the icy water. His teeth chatter from the water’s frigid temperature, but his mind feels clearer and his limbs tingle, invigorated. He combs through his hair and dresses into his trousers, shirt, and waist coat. He leaves his neck tie until he has been able to shave.

He plans out the day in his head, starting with the Divine Service after breakfast. He frowns as he picks his well-worn Bible from the shelf, displacing one of his sketchbooks at the same time. Naming his Sunday morning habit a _Divine Service _is inaccurate, particularly in the absence of one as godly and well-loved as Sir John, but in lieu of any services provided by the flagship’s captain, Irving has started hosting a small service with some of the men on _Terror_ where he reads his favorite passages, the men share their thoughts and worries, and – during the rare times when they forgo their despair – they sing hymns.

Irving flips through the Bible’s yellowing pages with care. Swiping his thumb against his tongue, he finds his marker in Ecclesiastes and reads over the verses.

“For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts,” he quietly reads aloud; “so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast.”

He cannot be sure if anyone will even attend today. Following the unfortunate lashing, dozens of _Terror_’s crew have vacated her hull, and with their numbers dwindling, not a single man joined Irving during last week’s study. He had waited, for a half hour, reading by lamplight before he realized no one would appear, and glumly, he returned to the deck above and resumed his duties for the day.

He forces the memory from his mind and continues reading. He eyes skim over the words, trying to find his place when his eyes fall on a particularly dire line: _all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. _

With a deep sigh, he closes the book and leaves it on his desk by the basin. Picking up his sketchbook, he sits on the unmade linens of his bed. In the back of his mind, he wonders if his choice of topic for today’s service is too bleak, too close to their everyday struggles in the Arctic wasteland. Perhaps a gentler passage from John or Romans would be appropriate; something brimming with hope and vindication.

Irving decides against it. If anything, he finds the realism of King Solomon’s darker years oddly comforting; that even one of the wisest of God’s followers could be as beset as Irving finds himself now. He leans his head against the cool wall of his berth, as he examines the watercolors that he has painstakingly tacked onto the walls, painted flowers which Irving referenced from a botany book, purchased near the dock in Greenhithe. The squares of paper with their pastel blooms remind him of home. They smell of colors he has not seen in years, and surrounded as he is by their gentle presence in his small cabin, Irving can lie to himself about the future, about whether or not any of them from _Terror_ or _Erebus_ will ever see another God-given iris or wild rose.

Irving fingers the corner of his sketchbook as he turns to an unfinished drawing, the subject a bundle of poppies. He traces the pad of his forefinger around the edges of the sketch, a reminiscent smile tugging at his lips. He turns to pages deeper in the book, looking at the drawings that stretch over a variety of subjects.

There’s a sketch of Neptune which Irving drew during an evening in the great cabin as he and the dog sat near the warmth of the stove; two pages later, there is a sketch, hastily drawn during a sledge trip, of a cairn surrounded by a desolate plain of shale, the sun a pale-haloed circle in the corner of the page; another page, a poorly drawn rendition of _Erebus_’s pet monkey Jacko and her toothy grin; another page, a rough sketch of the wardroom at dinner which Irving sketched from memory. The shapes of his fellow officers are wrought in cross-hatched slashes of pencil, blended and blurred. The officer seated nearest to Irving is drawn with the most detail, his whiskers shadowing his cheeks, his dark eyes turned to Irving, a smile on his lips.

If Irving correctly recalls that evening, Little had been in the process of sharing with him a funny anecdote about one of his brothers trying to calm an agitated gelding and being thrown in the process. Irving remembers less the story and more the way that Little’s face had relaxed for the first time in weeks. How his eyes lit up when he laughed. The brief pat of his hand on top of Irving’s, and how Irving’s breath quickened by the short contact of dry skin.

Deeper in the sketchbook, there are folded and carefully concealed loose pages of sketches that Irving draws as an expulsion of emotions and desires that he is too fearful to name, too cautious to face.

There is the drawing of Little in his full dress uniform, the details borrowed from Irving’s own uniform as he only briefly glimpsed Little in his. There is another drawing of Little with his hair falling in wavy wisps over his forehead from beneath his cap, his eyes searing black, and a smattering of freckles across the bridge of his nose from the glare of the unsetting summer sun. It is a vision of his fellow lieutenant that Irving glimpsed from the previous summer when both of them were on deck, at the mercy of the Arctic elements.

There is another drawing, so intimate that Irving’s loins stir at the thought of it. It is concealed deep in the sketchbook, the parchment folded and unfolded so many times that the seams in the paper have worn into slivers.

It is of Little looking down, his face in a quarter profile. His sharp nose and long eyelashes cast shadows on his cheekbones, his hair as ferociously wavy as though he just stepped indoors from a gale, and – tenderly imagined by Irving’s mind and pencil – the lines of Little’s bared neck intimate and supple, his wide shoulders freed from broadcloth, coils of ink-dark hair scattered across his chest, two shaded circles for the nipples Irving has never seen, his lean and freckled arms propping him up, and a line of hair growing thicker and darker as it trails down a strong waist past Little’s navel. Irving’s imagination ended where he drew a sheet draped over the subject’s lap, but his mind supplements his fantasies with the finer details of Little’s manhood and his muscled thighs.

Irving’s face colors when he considers pulling out that particular drawing. He resists the temptation, reminding himself that he just rid himself of arousal. It would be foolish to invite it upon himself again.

There is a sharp rap on his cabin door. Irving keeps himself from flinching as he tosses the sketchbook onto his desk chair.

“Come,” he answers.

The door slides open, and Mr. Genge enters with fresh, warm water. Irving masks his surprise that it is not Gibson, but in his gut, he is glad that the other steward is kept busy elsewhere.

Ever since the incident with Gibson and the caulker’s mate in the orlop, Irving has felt a deep discomfort around the tall, spindly steward; as though Gibson constantly dances around what he truly wishes to say to Irving and instead parrots, preens, and charms the lieutenant to such a degree that Irving is not sure if it is penance or bitterness that fuels Gibson. Either way, Gibson’s overattentiveness has become suffocating, and Irving welcomes the change of routine this morning.

He nods his thanks to Genge as he trades the fresh water for his dirty laundry. The steward asks if Irving requires his assistance further with his toilet or dressing, but with a wave of his hand, Irving says that he is settled for the morning. With a nod of his head, Genge exits the cabin, and Irving slides shut the door behind him.

Irving takes a moment to collect his thoughts, replacing his sketchbook neatly on the shelf. With his shaving kit spread out on his desk, he is lost in the motion of shaving the unwanted stubble around his beard. By the time he takes tea in the great cabin with his fellow officers and sits to breakfast in the wardroom, Irving feels that he has returned to his body, fully in control of his limbs, no splintered thoughts warring for dominance in his mind.

There is a brief crack in that composure when his eyes briefly lock with Little’s across the table, and the other lieutenant gives him a polite smile.

Irving returns it before he can stop himself, but immediately, in an attempt to divert his attention elsewhere, he takes a long sip of his drink before he turns to Hodgson beside him.

“How is the maintenance of the cannons faring? It sounded like a battle on deck yesterday.”

Crozier mutters something unintelligible into his glass from where he sits beside Little. The captain’s grouse is ignored by all but Blanky who snorts and Little who frowns. Irving notices the lines deepening between Little’s brow as he watches Crozier hand his empty glass to Mr. Jopson and the steward, without question, refill it.

To Irving’s question, Hodgson nods, his eyes are distant but his smile amiable.

“It went well. Even if that accursed beast attacks, we have firepower on our side.”

“Mm,” Irving manages as he takes another long sip.

Irving raises his eyes instinctively to Little. He feels the tiniest beginning of shame in his stomach that he seeks the other lieutenant as often as he does. Little’s eyes are raised also, but not at Irving. Risking a glance to his right, Irving subtly follows the lieutenant’s gaze where it lands on the back of Mr. Jopson. The steward refills the crystal decanter by the cabinet at the end of the narrow room, and when he turns, his eyes flick up briefly, his face poised and blank. Irving stops breathing for the few seconds where it appears that Little and Mr. Jopson stare at each other, those few seconds longer than what Irving deems ordinary between colleagues.

Irving swallows. “Edward, would you like to join us for our service this morning? I’ve selected a passage from Ecclesiastes for our study.”

Little’s eyes snap to him, and Irving feels his face coloring.

He adds, with a stutter he hopes no one but himself can hear, “Of course, everyone here is welcome, should he like to join.”

Little fidgets with the napkin in his lap, but it is Crozier who answers for the lieutenant.

“As riveting as your sermon likely is, John,” he says with tight, almost contemptuous smile, “Lieutenant Little is needed for our magnetic recordings today.”

Little gives Irving an apologetic smile, his eyebrows raising slightly. “Another time, maybe, John.”

“Of course.”

Irving smiles. His cheeks ache as he forces the expression to freeze, even when Little’s eyes fall away from his, even when Mr. Jopson passes behind Little to refill Mr. Blanky’s glass, even when the back of Mr. Jopson’s hand strays dreadfully and familiarly close to the back of Little’s shoulders.

The smile only slips once Irving leaves the wardroom and stops by his cabin to collect his Bible. There is an isolated moment where he stands in his cabin, surrounded by his paintings, his books, and the freshly made bed. Not for the first time, as he stands there, acutely aware of the slats in his door, he feels a cold hand gripping around his ribs, strong enough to crush him into dust.

He takes a deep breath through his nostrils. His eyes squeeze shut. His teeth clench.

Eventually, the sensation passes. Opening his eyes, he leaves his cabin to carry himself to a drafty corner of the orlop, near the bow of the ship, that he has claimed for several weeks past for his lamplit services.

Much is out of his power, both in the expedition and among his peers, but the service, meager and insubstantial as it may be compared to Sir John’s grandiose sermons, is one thing firmly in Irving’s grasp.

After he descends the ladder to the orlop, Irving is startled to discover his corner of carefully arranged crates and barrels, for lack of more appropriate seating, occupied already. Two sailors—Mr. Farr and Mr. Hartnell—sit by a lamp where together they mend a long swath of canvas draped across their laps. The pair of them are talking in hushed tones, the topic of conversation circling their favorite foods and pastimes back home, from what few words Irving hears as moves closer.

Hartnell notices Irving first. He nods, a friendly and open expression on his face. The sail on his lap keeps him from standing, but he salutes with his knuckles. Farr sees him second and follows Hartnell’s example. The sailors’ conversation dries up, and both of them look expectantly at Irving.

“Good morning,” Irving says stiffly, as he sits onto a barrel across from them. “Are you here for the service?”

“Yes, sir,” Hartnell answers, folding his portion of canvas from his lap.

Farr makes a choked noise as he looks at the floor.

“Apologies, sir,” he says in half-mumble as he clumsily gathers the remainder of the sail. “But I promised Mr. Lane that I’d help replace some ropes on deck.”

It is a flimsy story, but Irving cannot make himself reprimand Farr as he excuses himself and hurries away, his arms full of sail.

Hartnell looks suddenly quite nervous. His hands are folded in his lap, but he keeps rotating them to inspect his knuckles and fingernails. His lips twist in a strange grimace as if he fears that Irving would find a smile imprudent during something as solemn as a Sunday service.

Irving, for his part, is relieved that he does not have to spend another Sunday alone, though he searches his mind for anything he might say that would assuage Hartnell’s anxiety.

“Do you have your own Bible?” he asks, as he diverts his eyes to the pages as he finds his marker.

“No, sir.”

“A book of prayers, then?”

Hartnell’s voice is even lower, as though embarrassed. “No, sir.”

Irving clicks his tongue as he finds the correct passage.

“I have a prayer book that I may lend you, if you would like,” he offers, giving what he believes is an accommodating smile to Hartnell. “In the meantime, we can read together.”

Hartnell gapes at him, before his face relaxes. He stands, his face contorting briefly, before he crosses and sits on a barrel beside Irving.

“That’s kind of you, sir. Thank you.”

Irving nods and bows his head over the passage, prepared to read.

“I selected a passage from Ecclesiastes,” Irving explains, holding the book up for Hartnell to see when he leans closer. “It is not as sanguine, perhaps, as Song of Solomon, but I find it enlightening. Comforting, even.”

Hartnell makes a polite noise of acknowledgement, and Irving feels his face heat up. Never has his Sunday service been this intimate, but with only Hartnell in attendance, Irving feels less that he is performing a Divine Service and more that he is confiding with a friend, presenting glimpses of his soul as he is about to read a passage so dear to him.

Irving swallows and begins to recite, “’To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven. A time to be born and a time to die…’”

As he reads, his mind races back to the events of the last few months. The lead parties, each one unsuccessful. The Netsilik woman and her dead father. The creature, bear or demon, haunting the ice surrounding the ship. Sir John, missing, only a bloodied and mangled leg remaining. The men on the ship turning to paranoia and brute violence. The lashing.

Irving’s voice catches during _a time to love_ when he stops and faces Hartnell who is amazingly rapt with attention. Hartnell glances over, eyebrows raised, while Irving struggles to find the proper words.

“I’m sorry,” he says, haltingly. “I meant to ask how you’re faring. Is your back healed yet?”

Two dots of color start to glow on each of Hartnell’s cheeks as he looks down. “Yeah. Yes. It’s healed.” He inclines his head, the same half-smile, half-grimace from earlier returning. “Mostly. One of the scabs opened up, but Dr. MacDonald helped close it back up. It stings, time to time, but nothing bad, sir.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it.”

Hartnell’s voice drops, soft and shy. “Thank you, sir.”

When Irving resumes reading, it is with more enthusiasm than before. Hartnell, likewise, seems more comfortable as he leans his arms onto his thighs. Irving shifts so that Hartnell can see the pages of the Bible as well. Hartnell’s chin juts out as he lifts his head to follow the words as Irving reads.

Irving loses himself in the scripture, to the warmth radiating from the body seated behind him; the distant creaking of the ice and the thud of feet on the decks above a constant background hum. When he reaches the line of _man hath no preeminence above a beast, _Hartnell clears his throat.

“What do you think it is, sir?”

Irving stops, his eyes reading and re-reading _all is vanity_ as though it were some kind of omen.

“The…creature, sir?” Hartnell gently prompts. “Do you think it’s a beast? Or that God is punishing us?”

“God wouldn’t punish Sir John in that manner, Hartnell.”

The response is fast and automatic, so much so that even Irving ponders the truth behind the words after he says them.

He has lost countless hours of sleep wondering if it is less punishment from God and more that they have entered a land bereft of their God’s presence.

“Is He testing us?” Hartnell sounds fearful of, if not frustrated by, the idea.

Irving sits back on the barrel, hardly noticing when their knees bump into each other.

“I don’t know,” he says, after a lengthy pause. “But whether He is or not, we must practice patience. And hope. Always hope.”

The answer satisfies Hartnell enough, but Irving hesitates to continue reading the same passage. When Hartnell asks if he may read instead, Irving looks at him in surprise. He hands him the Bible, inhaling sharply when their fingers brush.

Hartnell’s tongue pokes between his lips as he flips through the pages. The sight warms Irving’s heart, and when Hartnell asks where to find a particular chapter, he happily helps.

The next hour flies by, both men alternating between reading and asking each other questions; some about their study, some about the condition of the ship, some tentatively about each other. When the bell on deck tolls, signifying the end of the time allotted to his morning service, Irving finds himself struck by a deep sadness.

Hartnell also bites back a sigh as he stands. Irving closes his Bible but makes no move to stand or gather the lantern.

“So, lieutenant,” Hartnell says as he pats his legs. “Will it be the same time next Sunday?”

Irving looks up, the weight in his heart lessening as he returns Hartnell’s smile.

“Yes.”

***

The rest of the day is uneventful, save a lightness in Irving’s step that somehow makes the monotony of the day less oppressive. Every time Irving’s path crosses with Seaman Hartnell’s, they don’t speak, but both feel the thread spooling between them, entwining them after the strange and precious morning they spent together.

As evening falls – distinguished only by the creeping hands of their watches and the doleful ringing of the bell on deck, no sun by which to mark their days – Irving’s cheer lessens. The captain is in a deep temper by the time the officers have their evening meal, and when he vacates the wardroom suddenly and abruptly, each of the lieutenants and stewards pause, glancing at each other’s pale faces.

After replacing the lid on the tureen, Mr. Jopson slips out the door without a word, and Irving feels his heart leap into his throat when Little follows a few seconds later.

His worries from earlier are bumbling in his head like a cracked bell, broken and inharmonious. The rest of his meal is tasteless. He finishes a couple more bites before he pushes the remaining food on his plate while Hodgson attempts to fill the bloated silence of the wardroom with some bland story. Irving does not hear a word of it, but he thinks Hodgson does not care. He, also, sounds like his mind is miles away.

Gibson, his lips pursed in a tight frown, starts to clear the table when Irving and Hodgson stand to leave. Hodgson hurries to the privacy of his berth once he leaves the wardroom, but Irving lingers a moment in the narrow hallway.

The door to the great cabin is shut, so he assumes that the officers are not welcome in the captain’s domain this evening. The dim glow of lamplight shines from the slats of Lieutenant Little’s door. Concerned for the captain, but also wishing to calm the storm inside his own chest, Irving forces his sluggish feet forward and prays for the bravery to knock on Little’s door.

The sound of two voices, soft in conversation, makes him halt. The lieutenant, Irving realizes with a rush of confusion, is not alone. He knows that he should walk away, that this is clearly a private matter between the lieutenant and whoever is with him as the door is shut and their voices hushed. Irving knows that he should go to his cabin, prepare for bed, and stamp down his loneliness. But his feet stay planted, one eye on the hallway to his right, watching for anyone who might see him eavesdropping. Irving steps close to the wall, aware of how his body casts a faint shadow from the lamp behind him, and presses his ear close to the edge of the door.

“—worse, I know. But I can’t deny him. That’s not my place.”

“He’ll far sooner listen to you than me.”

Irving flinches when he recognizes the harried exhaustion lining Little’s voice as he speaks with Mr. Jopson, though Irving cannot bring himself to move as the conversation in Little’s cabin continues. There is the near undetectable creak of floorboards as though someone moved to sit on the bed.

“Edward, you can’t blame yourself—”

“Collins isn’t a fool, Tom. He knows what I’m doing every damn time I’m there.”

Irving’s throat clenches at the familiarity of their words, the gentle use of one another’s given names. Still an eye on the lower deck to his right.

“Even if he does, what could he do that would harm you—”

“That’s not what worries me. It’s only a matter of time before Commander Fitzjames knows as well.”

Mr. Jopson hushes him, and the conversation grows quieter. Irving strains to hear what he murmurs to Little, his voice rumbling and low. A clatter of china from the wardroom startles him, and in a panic, Irving realizes that Gibson may appear at any moment and discover him.

He is trapped. If he goes to his cabin, Gibson will see him and can ascertain that he was intruding on Little and Mr. Jopson. His mind races, and he acts before he can think of more consequences. The door to the great cabin opens and closes soundlessly, and Irving pins himself behind the door as he listens for Gibson’s exit from the wardroom.

He holds his breath, aware of every noise he makes. He glances behind him, delayed and sheepish, but the room is empty and dark save the faint glow from lamps on deck filtering through the illuminators. The ship’s dog acts as sentinel before Crozier’s closed off berth, and the dog lifts his massive head to peer at Irving. He deems Irving uninteresting and, with a huff, lays his head back onto the floor.

Irving unfurls his hand from the tight fist he had been clutching it in. He winces at the half-moons left in the pale skin of his palm, angry red and frowning at him from between the lines of his skin. He straightens his fingers, clenches them, and straightens them again, keeping their movement in time with his deep, careful breaths. Footfalls thud in the hallway. He waits for them to fade. When it is silent, he slides open the door an inch, and seeing nothing but an empty hallway, he leaves the great cabin as quickly as he entered it.

He spares a single, lingering look to Little’s door. The lamp inside has been diminished, and it would be thoughtless of Irving to bother him. As he walks away, his ears perk to an infinitesimally soft sigh slithering from between the slats in Little’s door. Irving pauses, thinking the noise must be his imagination, until it is followed by an equally quiet moan.

Irving recoils as if struck. Red-faced and ashamed, he hurries to the privacy of his cabin. Safe behind his own door, his hands shake as he lights his lamp.

Of course Lieutenant Little would have urges, same as any other man. Little is as much of flesh as he is the graphite lines on paper and the ethereal object of Irving’s fantasies. It is the thought that he is not alone that makes Irving feel sick. Little is not the type of man to coerce a man below him into carnal relations. Irving has served on ships with officers like that; manipulative, petty men who preyed on young sailors who could do nothing to demur, nothing to protect themselves against the lechery of a man shielded by rank. Besides, Irving assures himself as he shakily removes his jacket, Little maintains a practiced distance to the crewmembers of _Terror_.

To all except Mr. Jopson, Irving’s mind cruelly reminds him.

It makes sense, in a way that Irving did not appreciate until now. They are the two men closest to Captain Crozier, save perhaps Mr. Blanky. Little and Jopson both have shouldered the captain’s demons, and when the burden became too much, they drew to each other like moths to a flame. First in professional rapport, then friendship, then even further intimacy.

Irving sits, his limbs trembling from more than the cold, his hands restlessly twitching along the decorative cut of his bed, before he stands and yanks his sketchbook from the shelf, moving frantically. He finds what he wants, the myriad collection of portraits, all in varying states of completion, of Lieutenant Little.

The force of his sexual desire does not enflame him, not this time. Instead he is a boy once more, standing before a painted mural: a depiction of Christ surrounded by the men and women who adored him and whom He, in turn, adored. Irving was struck by the masculine beauty of this divine and human man who loved and loved and loved so much that he suffered for it, that he gave more than he received, and it was always good, perfectly good.

Thus Irving—young, untroubled, innocent John—loved and loved and loved even when he kept it secret, locked in a corner of his heart that knew no language except the rhythm of his blood and the aches of his longing.

He runs his fingers down the penciled likeness of Little as he blinks away the sting in his eyes.

_Foolish!_ He chastises himself.

That he should desperately want another man but keep himself from ever revealing his desires. Irving learned from a young age that such restraint was virtuous, even as the door behind which he buried his love warped and rotted over the years.

“’There is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing,’” he recites the scripture from memory, attempting to calm himself and lock away this abnormality of his that he has shunned since his boyhood.

But his treacherous mind returns to the cabin two doors down. Despite the envy blinding him, Irving can admit that the first lieutenant and the steward make a handsome couple; their pale skin freckled with moles and sharply contrasted by dark hair, one pair of eyes as icy as the Arctic sky and the other as pitch black as the winter darkness, their limbs long and the muscles lean beneath the skin stretched tight across their stomachs and hips, backs heaving as they embrace each other and move in tandem on the bed—

A double knock on the door disrupts Irving’s self-pity. He slams the sketchbook shut, haphazardly throwing the sketches into its binding before he shoves it onto the shelf.

He breathes, wetting his lips even as his mouth feels dry. “Yes, who is it?”

The person outside his door clears his throat. “Hartnell, sir.”

The morning rushes back to Irving in a blur, and he jumps to his feet, flinging his door open with more force than necessary. Hartnell stares dumbfounded at him, and Irving finds himself equally at a loss. Irving knows how frightful he must look, with his terrible inability to mask his distress when something vexes him.

Kindly, Hartnell drops his eyes to the floor. His hands clasp in front of him then unclasp as they fidget with his jacket.

“I’m sorry to impose, sir,” Hartnell says. “You said earlier that you have a prayer book I can borrow?”

Irving blinks, the question taking him off guard.

“Of course,” he answers, nodding his head once, even as he feels trapped in a fog, his movements sluggish as he steps back and gestures for Hartnell to enter his cabin. “Let me get it for you.”

Hartnell nods, a polite smile on his face. He hesitates at the threshold, stepping through the door after a few seconds hovering right outside. Irving learns that the prayer book is weirdly absent, and he turns his back to Hartnell as he runs a finger along the books. The book is small. Perhaps Irving mistakenly shoved it behind a larger volume.

“Thank you again, sir,” Hartnell says, his voice directly behind Irving’s shoulder.

Irving turns so sharply to look at him that his hand catches the edge of several books, pulling them to the floor in a jumble of leather and paper.

Hartnell stands mere inches behind him, his hands lifted as though he meant to catch some of the books. Irving has to bite his tongue to keep himself from reprimanding the sailor. For what? Startling him? Hardly the lad’s fault. Irving kneels to scoop up the books. When he sees the prayer book among the heap of pages, he shakes his head.

“There you are,” he says under his breath as he tosses it on the bed.

“I’m sorry, sir,” Hartnell mumbles, looking as embarrassed as Irving feels. “Let me help.”

It is only once Hartnell is kneeling on the floor beside him that Irving realizes that his sketchbook fell as well and scattered the loose drawings along the floor where Hartnell picks one up.

Irving’s heart skips a beat.

“Put that down!” he commands, his words harsh and shrill.

Hartnell’s head snaps up when Irving barks at him, but it is too late. He already saw. Irving can see the recognition in Hartnell’s face with damnable clarity.

It is the sketch of Lieutenant Little that had been in Hartnell’s grasp, and now this young seaman knows the true depth of Irving’s disgusting hypocrisy and his crude urges.

Irving grabs the paper, wincing as it crumples when he shoves it back into the sketchbook. Hartnell is still kneeling, watching him silently as Irving stands and stiffly grabs the prayer book. He thrusts his arm out, giving Hartnell the book even as his eyes burn into the wall of his cabin and his chest heaves from a series of rapid, frenzied breaths. He can’t bring himself to look at Hartnell when the man stands and accepts the book.

“Leave, please,” he says, trying to control his face.

Hartnell stays. “Sir, if I may—”

“You may not.”

Irving feels his resolve crumbling. His desire to physically lash out and strike something is simmering right under his skin. He tightens his fists and turns his glare onto Hartnell.

The cabin door is still open, and fearful that anyone from deeper in the ship can hear them or see them, Irving feels his legs trembling, ready to buckle from under him at any moment. Hartnell does the unthinkable, and turns, not to exit, but to shut the door. Irving’s heart is a stampeding riot in his chest.

“Sir.”

“What are you doing?”

Hartnell visibly swallows. “Many of the men onboard do it.”

“I gave you an order to leave, Seaman Hartnell, and now you dare insinuate that I—that I am—”

“There is no shame in it, sir.”

Irving glowers. “You were lashed once. Do you want that again?”

Hartnell flinches, his gaze finally breaking from Irving’s. To the lieutenant’s increasing chagrin, though, Hartnell holds his ground. As he looks at the paintings tacked to the walls, he glances briefly at Irving and then back to the wall.

“You painted these?”

The change of subject unbalances Irving enough that his anger begins to slowly abate—too exhausting an emotion to maintain for long.

Hartnell doesn’t wait for an answer.

“My brother liked to paint as well. Back home.” He huffs, his lips starting to smile before they droop into a frown that pains Irving in a way he does not expect. “John tried to teach me how to draw, when we were younger. But I never took to it like him. He drew flowers as well, but more often landscapes.”

Irving collapses onto the edge of the berth, feeling drained. He forgot about Hartnell’s older brother, one of the three they had buried on Beechey Island. It feels like a lifetime ago. At the time, Irving pitied the men, having succumbed to illness so early in the expedition, but now – trapped and lost as they are – Irving believes that men on Beechey might have been the more fortunate for it.

In a moment of boldness, Hartnell sits on the edge of the desk chair across from Irving. He rubs his thumb across the leather binding of the prayer book, a circular motion that near hypnotizes Irving the longer he watches it. The free hand on Hartnell’s trouser leg twitches before it inches forward, bridging the gap between them.

“I meant what I said before,” Hartnell murmurs, the tips of his fingers brushing against Irving’s fist where it sits on the bed linens. When Irving jerks his hand back, Hartnell pauses then tries again.

“We’ve all done it. You don’t have to be ashamed, sir.”

Something unravels in the muscle of his arm, and Irving opens his hand to accept the touch of Hartnell’s fingers against his. Once their palms are flush, Hartnell slides his fingers around the side of Irving’s hand, reaching far enough that his thumb dips under the cuff of Irving’s sleeve. He brushes it against the skin of Irving’s wrist, in a motion mirroring the circles he traced on the prayer book.

Irving’s pulse begins to race, not for panic but for a different, more pleasurable tension.

“I knew your brother, but not well,” Irving whispers. “Tell me more about him.”

Hartnell’s grip tightens on his hand, a kind and reassuring squeeze, and when Irving looks up, Hartnell’s face is wistful, his gaze distant.

“He loved thunderstorms,” he says, his shoulders shaking once with a silent laugh. “Back home, when the rain would pour, and the lightning was bright enough to light an entire room, he would open the window overlooking the neighbors’ house. He would hang out the window and watch the storm, getting himself and the rug drenched. Our mother was always furious.”

He pauses, the gleam in his eyes acquiring a bright, mirrored sheen. The tears collecting in the edge of Hartnell’s eyes compel Irving to sit lean forward. He places his free hand on top of Hartnell’s where it still holds his wrist. Hartnell startles at the contact, his eyes meeting Irving’s. One tear falls down his cheek, in a jagged wet line, but he doesn’t remove his hand to wipe it away.

“The first storm we encountered at sea,” Hartnell resumes, “I clung to the rope like my life depended on it. The ship moved up and down so furiously that I was terrified I would be thrown off. But John? He held on with one hand so that he could hold out his other arm and feel the rain. Had the biggest smile I’d ever seen on his face, like there was no other place he’d rather be.”

Their heads leaned close during the story, their foreheads nearly touching. Hartnell sets the prayer book on his lap so that he can brush his fingertips against the smooth skin above Irving’s beard.

The touch is electric, and Irving forgets himself long enough to kiss Hartnell.

It’s chaste and brief, lasting only two seconds before Irving pulls back. His heart hammers as he realizes what he just thoughtlessly did, but there is no disgust, no censure in Hartnell’s face. He sniffs, wiping the damp spot on his cheek when he smiles shyly at Irving. He pats the prayer book and nods.

“Well, I miss John, but I like to think he’s better off now.” He gently extracts his fingers from Irving’s. The sudden vacancy between Irving’s fingers is as uncomfortable as dirt under his nails, but he lets Hartnell go.

He stands with him, and Hartnell tilts his head.

“Thank you again for the book. I promise to return it soon.”

“Keep it as long as you like.” Irving pauses. “And thank you, as well.”

Hartnell smiles, opening the door to the cabin with its muted groan of wood upon wood. “Good night, sir.” His eyes twinkle. “Until next Sunday, yeah?”

When he is gone and the door shut once more, Irving sits back on the bed. He wraps his arms around himself and lies back, looking at the whitewashed paneling above him. Wind howls outside, high-pitched and menacing, but the noise falls on Irving’s deaf ears as immovable as a great rock withstanding the crash of waves.

He goes through the motions of preparing for bed, and once he is dressed down to his nightshirt, he picks up his sketchbook, fixing the loose drawings where they had wrinkled and carefully returning them to their home between the sheets of paper. He lingers on the drawing of Little before he smooths the creases and folds the paper back into place. He places the sketchbook in between his Bible and a worn volume of Euclidean mathematics.

He extinguishes the lamp and lies down in bed, as carefully tucked under his blanket as the sketchbook is snugly kept in place on the shelf.

Tonight, Irving dreams not of dying men, mud, and dust.

There is a billowing wind that shepherds clouds dark and furious across the sky. Irving feels the rain on his face and a hand interlaced with his. He takes a deep breath as the vice around his chest loosens, and he laughs in time with the thunder and lightning.

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr](https://whalersandsailors.tumblr.com)


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